Terms of a Lifetime
by THElaughingUNIVERSE
Summary: Neville has had a hard time with life lately. He only wants to find some peace. But first he has to come to terms with the one person he'd rather avoid. Himself.
1. 01

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or the world. I do not write to be paid lots of money.  
All quotes preceding the chapters are from the song "Carry On Wayward Son" by Kansas. Also not owned by me.

Warnings: Will contain slash.

01

Once I rose above the noise and confusion  
Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion  
I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high  
Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man  
Though my mind could think I still was a mad man  
I hear the voices when I'm dreamin',  
I can hear them say...

"Carry On Wayward Son"

-Kansas

Hogsmeade was looking dismal indeed. Gray cold sleet pounded down on the roofs of the village washing away the snow that had fallen and leaving only slick, miserable mud. Wind whipped through the streets wrenching tree branches and debris with it, trapping everyone inside. There was a kind of quiet somewhere in the deafening roar of the storm. A comfortable, though unwelcome, kind of quiet, that can only be known to some people.

Inside that quiet a conversation was taking place.

The Three Broomsticks was closed for the night. The bar was dark inside and the doors were locked. The stools and chairs were turned upside down on the tables. Everyone had gone home for the night. The merry makers were back in bed beside their wives. The troublemakers had found beds with someone else's wives. The miserable old men had hobbled home. Even the three legged alley cat had retired, slinking his way through a crack in the glass of a small window and down into a slightly less damp basement where he was curled behind a stack of wine barrels.

Upstairs, on the second floor, beside a glowing hearth and a bottle of wine, the untroubled quiet and the conversation huddled together. Words passed back and forth between two friends, a bartender and a headmistress, that could be of no consequence to anyone but themselves.

Minerva leaned back comfortably in a large cushy armchair. Her wrists rested on the arms and her legs were outstretched and crossed. Her hat was pushed forward to a dramatic angle over her face by the back of the chair. She was, without a doubt, slouching. A most rare occurrence indeed.

In her right hand was a notably empty wineglass, a drop or two of red still sleeping at the bottom.

Rosmerta was tending the fire, her purple red skirt hitched up in one hand while the other prodded firmly at the coals. The spitting and crackling nearly drowned out her voice as she spoke. But given that Minerva had known this woman for a good many years she didn't actually need to hear the words to know what was being said.

"It's his eyes." her friend was saying. The fire poker made a metallic clang when Rosmerta set it down on the hearth stone. She rose and brushed a few ashes from her dress. "They are..."

"Sad." Minerva agreed.

Rosmerta nodded, turning her head to the rain outside. "With his childhood it's no wonder."

Minerva made a noise that didn't indicate her feeling one way or another on the matter.

"You haven't failed him Minerva." Rosmerta spoke in the soft voice of someone who was more used to soothing the woes of strangers than her own. "He did spectacularly. Stood up to the dark lord in the end, when everyone else was ready to give up. That's what you told me. You should be proud of him, and he should be proud of himself."

"He should be." Minerva agreed softly and cursed the waver in her voice. "If he could just catch a break. If life would just leave him _alone_ for two seconds, give the poor boy a chance to catch his breath." She was feeling much more maudlin than usual. It was this damn wine. Rosmerta had snuck a couple more glasses in on her somehow, filled the cup when she wasn't looking.

"I've heard rumors..." Rosmerta said slowly. Minerva shrugged, not feeling she had the energy for this conversation, knowing she didn't have the energy _not_ to have it.

"Some of them are true. Some of them pretend to know too much. Most of them don't say enough."

"Frank is really dead then?"

"Frank. And Alice too." Both of them gone, like whispers in the wind. Frank and Alice Longbottom were dead and it was damn unfair.

"Alice." Rosmerta echoed. Her voice had changed. They were dying, all of the Order. One by one. The war was over and still the heroes died. "Tell me how."

There was a very brief moment where Minerva considered refusing. And then she looked up from under the brim of her had at the face behind the question. Rosmerta was stricken. She had been listening to the stories for a month now without any notion of what she could actually believe. The graying wisps of her brown hair framed by the fire, the flushed skin of her cheeks, her hands were white where they clenched.

"It's an awful story, my dear."

"Minerva please..."

Minerva leaned forward staring down into her empty wineglass. She held it outstretched, realizing that if she was going to tell this story she hadn't had nearly enough yet. Rosmerta filled the glass. The wine made a light musical sound falling into the glass, putting a cheerful wall between themselves and the night.

Then Minerva, her hat pushed forward, her eyes lined, like the voice of the reaper, began to speak.

"Two weeks ago Alice woke up. The poor mediwitch who came in to check on her must have been frightened out of her skin. Working all those years and the woman never speaks a word to you, then one morning she sits up and asks if it isn't possible to get a pot of tea and some biscuits!

"The Healer contacted me. The first thing I did was go searching for Neville to take him with me of course. It took me thirty minutes to find him. It was eleven o'clock at night, the boy should have been in bed. Or at the very least in his dormitory. But he was nowhere, not even the library. Hermione told me that he often disappeared quietly for hours at a time. I had to dispatch several house elves to locate him. Then the house elf who did find him refused to tell me _where._

"It didn't really seem like such a big deal at the time. I didn't care what rule he was breaking I just wanted him to know the news. I thought he would be overjoyed, bouncing." Minerva broke her pattern to breath, hands floating down to rest in her lap. Rosmerta was watching her with still eyes.

"He wasn't."

"No. He was melancholy at best. Subdued. For the first few moments he simply stared at me. He didn't speak at all until we actually got to the hospital. 'How is it possible?' he asked me. I told him I didn't know. How could I even guess?

"I felt like a fool Rosmerta. Me, a seasoned member of the Order, looking a gift horse in the mouth. I was so pleased to hear the news I didn't even stop to wonder about the implications. It took Neville, the child who I should have been guiding, to snap my mind back into place."

"That-" Rosmerta's quavering voice interrupted, "is a disturbing reaction for a child to have."

"I know." Minerva forced herself to take a deep breath. "I think we need to accept that he isn't a child anymore. We failed him in that aspect at least."

"Perhaps he simply did good by us."

"You don't believe that." Rosmerta didn't answer.

"In any case we saw her. And she smiled and hugged and fussed over Neville like any proper mother should. Neville smiled back and gave her all the right answers. It was all so calculated, so cold. Like a dance they both knew the steps to. It doesn't really matter what she said. I know you want those details but I'm afraid I don't have the heart tonight. I may never.

"What I can tell you is that when we returned to Hogwarts, in the early morning, Neville didn't leave right away. I expected him to. He was always closed off and quiet. But he sat down in my office... and looked and me and he cried." Small tears scraped into her voice. Minerva reached for her handkerchief.

"He came back to my office often after that. We talked. We still do, that was how it started. I tell him about his parents, how I knew them. And he tells me, well anything." Minerva took a deep breath. "Two days later I got another emergency floo call from St. Mungo's. Frank was dead. Alice had pushed him out of the window."

"My god!" Rosmerta's gasp showed the clearly she hadn't heard any of the right rumors. Minerva picked up her wine glass again, sipping it. Her own voice, she found, was frighteningly steady.

"She told the healers that she hadn't meant to do it that way. That she had wanted it to be quiet and nice. But then, standing there, looking at his blank face she'd just snapped. She couldn't take it, the way he was. "He wouldn't have wanted to live that way." she told them. Then she just kept apologizing and sobbing and they couldn't get her to explain anymore.

"The healers said she'd had a dissociative episode that presented as lucidity."

"Oh-" Rosmerta was gripping her skirt, the deep folds casting deeper shadows on her hands. They were a bartenders hands. Lean and nimble, but strong. Minerva cleared her throat.

"Then a week ago she killed herself. Overdosed of a potion." She looked up to find needles gazing back at her from her friend's eyes. Needles that probed and saw everything.

"You don't think it was a dissociative episode do you?"

"No." And the knots Minerva had been waiting for came back, the pain that was supposed to come with losing old friends. "It was too neat, too well planned. She managed to trick the mediwitch attending her and hide her potions until she had enough to be a toxic amount. That she even knew how much she needed suggests-"

"That she was lucid."

"Yes. Killing Frank wasn't an act of madness. It was a botched act of mercy."

Rosmerta was leaning on her knees staring at the fire. Minerva leaned back and looked at the fires reflection in the window.

"Poor Neville."

"I'm worried about him." Minerva admitted. "He talks to me, and that's good for him. But I can't remember the last time I saw him laugh, or hanging around with his friends. And sometimes..." Minerva stopped herself. It was the wine, she asserted in her mind, the wine making her want to say these things.

"Sometimes?" Rosmerta prompted. Minerva decided it didn't matter how ridiculous the truth sounded. Years in this world, in the war, should have taught her that by now.

"I feel like he's fading away. Like he is one of Hogwarts phantoms, fading into the woodwork."

XXX

Neville sat on the cold stone floor. His thighs were partially numb from the cold now and burned when he laid the heat of his palms on top of them. He should have been long to bed. Hours ago. He should have felt better. Days ago. He should have been able to move on. Months ago.

The mirror of Erised glimmered before him, a serene liquid pool to calm the tossing storm inside him. The clarity of his reflection was made sharper by the milky shafts of moonlight streaming in from the window. It seemed to him the reflection was more solid than he was these days. When he looked down at his own hands and legs at night, when he dared, they looked smoky. Like they weren't really there, like _he_ was the reflection and that tranquil face in the mirror was the reality.

_What is it, _he wondered to the familiar face _that makes you so calm?_ At the same time a smaller, more ashamed voice was furious with the unfairness of it all. _Why not me?_ Was all it wanted to know.

_Because that is only what I want most._ Neville reminded himself. _Because that is not real._

_It was for Harry._ Says the small voice, a far away whisper, echoes from deep within a chasm, from deep within himself where he had been certain he was already asleep. _When he needed the stone._

_I'm not Harry._ And there the train of thought ended. Because that was pretty much what it came down to. He was not Harry.

Harry could let go of the past. Harry could move on and have other dreams. Harry lost his parents and still slept at night.

Neville sighed to fill the silence. If only that reflection could talk. If only the Neville in the mirror would smile, and wink, pass his secret on.

The stone floor was still cold. Neville traced the cracks in the rocks.

When he glanced up he noticed his reflection was tracing the soft fibers of a rug instead. Behind him was a warm looking room, with dark wooden walls and curtains on the windows.

"Where are you?" Neville asked out loud before he could remind himself how ridiculous the question was.

_Where are _you_?_ Asked a voice he did not know.

XXX

Minerva saw Neville pass through the hallway one evening. The dusk was bright and clear as a crystal glass, the orange sunlight warm. Neville was transparent as a ghost.

He saw her and paused. His brown eyes met her own.

_You've changed._ She thought and nodded a casual greeting at him. _If only..._ her conscience was whispering. Neville's plain form wavered and for a moment she imagined she could see the red of the tapestry behind him through his stomach and shoulders.

He nodded back without even the thinnest parody of a smile. Neville kept walking.

Minerva shook her head, called the event preposterous, and continued with her day.

XXX

When he slept he dreamed of the room inside the mirror. He was peering from his comfortable seat on the rug out to the miserable "other" of himself seated unhappily on the stone floor of Hogwarts. Behind him there were voices, whispers, but he couldn't hear what they were saying. And the mirror, of course, didn't reflect to show him who else stood in the room.

Neville closed his eyes and made himself listen to the speakers.

"He's getting clearer everyday." the voices said.

"Yes," they answered themselves. "And perhaps someday soon he will decide to stay."

"I do want to stay." Neville said out loud. He twisted, hoping he would be able to get a glimpse of who was hearing _his_ words. He met brown eyes, but everything outside of the mirror was hazy. He was getting tired, which was odd because he knew for a fact that he was dreaming. "In fact I think I will." he decided. And gave up on the illogic of falling asleep while already being so, and dropped himself into the darkness and comparable comfort of a soft warm rug to a cold earthy floor.

XXX

Neville woke up to an oddly colored ceiling. Well, actually, it wasn't the color itself but the fact that it wasn't the color he was expecting which left him feeling so odd. The ceilings in the Gryffindor dorm were a deep scarlet red. This one was green and wooden. Ornate carvings scattered across the beams, tiny figures and shapes that his baffled eyes couldn't make out.

The bed was not his own either.

Neville sat up and saw the mirror. It sat in the corner of the room like a watching dog. Still and calm, with edges like quicksilver. Within it was a cold stone room.

_Hogwarts._ Here there was a soft carpet on the floor.

In the doorway, across from the mirror, stood a young man. His stillness matched the mirrors. He was tall and blonde with thin eyebrows and rather perfect hair. High cheekbones that suggested good "breeding" and deep gray eyes that suggested deep things. His face suggested strongly that he was Draco Malfoy.

Draco stared openly at him. He expressed nothing one way or another. He _did_ lean back and tilt his head to the right and shout.

"He's awake!"

"I'm coming!" A familiar and strange voice answered. "Be. NICE!"

Draco snorted. He walked to the foot of Neville's bed, graceful. Despite his whirling confusion Neville was inspired to understand that this was not the Draco he had known at school. Draco's arms crossed across his chest in a manner that suggested he was unimpressed. Not that Neville saw any reason why he should be.

"So." said Draco. "I suppose you're Neville Longbottom."

Neville coughed and cleared the catch in his throat. "Yes."

No reaction. "Of course you are."

A brown haired young man brisked his way into the room. His hair was slightly curled and imperfect, like Neville's. His eyes were brown and wide, like Neville's. And his face had a sort of childlike roundness, like Neville. The difference being that on this guy all of his features looked charming. There was also the matter of the rather hideous scar that ran from brow to chin on the left side of the man's face. It cut through the eyebrow and down the eye.

That eye, Neville noticed, was just slightly darker in color than the other.

"Who is our guest then?" asked the brown eyed man, whose voice could probably have been Neville's a few years down the road.

"He's you."

"Really? Now isn't that fascinating."

Draco turned away. "Not really." But the young man, who Neville was sure he could put a name to now if he dared, was smiling.

"You will be Neville then?" he asked at Neville.

"Yes." said Neville for the second time. Considering the hour of the morning, much too late, and his ever rising stress level he was growing more and more impatient with the situation.

"Good. Me too. I imagine we'll get along swimmingly. Although there seems to be an age difference. How old are you Neville?"

"Eighteen." Neville wasn't sure how much he liked being addressed on a first name basis by himself.

"A bit of an age gap then, yes. I'm twenty three now."

Neville raised a hand to his eyes and rubbed at them hard. His morning, so far, and thanks to his older mystery clone, was proceeding in a business-like fashion. He didn't like it. He was confused. He was tired. And as far as he was concerned a little more chaos was in order.

"Excuse me!" he said loudly, interrupting whatever was being said. "What the hell?"

Neville-who wasn't Neville but apparently was-, looked taken back.

"Tell me about your home." he requested.

"Tell me where I am." Neville replied in kind.

"Malfoy Manor." Draco told him. He received a nod from Other-Neville.

Without another word Draco walked out of the room.

"You'll have to forgive Draco. He always gets a little testy when this happens." Neville assumed this comment was supposed to be comforting. "I think it unsettles him."

_If he feels at all like I do I don't blame him._ Neville thought.

Other-Neville was speaking. "You are in an alternate universe from your own. Though usually the alternate versions of me, or us rather, that come through are the same age.

"My reality has pulled you here in an effort to rectify a mistake. It chose _you_ specifically because it deemed you unnecessary to the reality you were previously in." Again, that was uncomforting. "Or perhaps I should say that you considered yourself unnecessary within it." Other Neville paused, looking sad. "Which leads me to believe that you left something less than ideal behind."

Neville shrugged. He wanted to say "I doubt this world will be much better." but he didn't have the energy. Or the will. Or maybe he was hoping if he just let everything happen the dream would end eventually and he would wake up.

Other-Neville rose from the bed and shut the door. His hands were perfect, unscarred. Scholars hands.

_I thought I always wanted to be a gardener?_

A silencing spell settled over the door at the older Neville's casual wave. He put the wand down on the bed and sat back down, crossing his legs this time.

"If you are anything like me, which I can very safely assume, you will benefit most from being told everything immediately. To avoid further confusion you may refer to me by my –our- middle name."

Neville scrunched up his face. He hated the name Ambrose.

Ambrose nodded. "We all make sacrifices." he said ironically.

Then he told Neville a true story.


	2. 02

Thank you for the reviews.

02

Masquerading as a man with a reason  
My charade is the event of the season  
And if I claim to be a wise man  
It surely means that I don't know

"Though I should like to, I cannot start the story with myself for the simple reason that I was not here in the beginning. But I will speak as if I was. I will refer to the main character as 'I' or 'myself' and it is close enough to the truth that it doesn't matter.

"Shall I begin? Or, where do I begin, is perhaps a better question? The beginning seems like such a dull place since that's where everyone starts. Still, this is not the place for a philosophical discussion. Very well, the beginning.

"When I was born there was a prophecy concerning a boy who would grow up to defy and defeat the dark lord.

"'_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies . and the dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not . and either must live at the hand of the other for neither can die while the other survives . the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies._

_"_You've probably heard it. Or a version very much like it. Voldemort heard the first part of this prophecy twenty three years ago and decided he didn't like it very much. He took it upon himself to find the boy spoken of and kill him. However his informant gave him incomplete information and he never heard the middle portion. And so by attempting to prevent the prophecy he went and fulfilled part of it. He hunted down my parents and killed them both. Then he tried to kill me.

"Tried and failed obviously. James and Lily Potter showed up, themselves thrice deifiers. They had heard the prophecy through Dumbledore, as had my parents. But given James and Lily's reputations everyone thought it would be their son Voldemort would go after, so the protections around my house were arrogantly small. When Voldemort didn't show they realized he was after me. They left baby Harry with his godfather and came to intervene.

"The whole bloodline spits out heroes like it's their damn business.

"Anyway, there I was, a little helplessly wailing babe. And there's Voldemort, the most powerful dark wizard of our time. Lily and James were just bursting in to save the day. Voldemort casts his dark curse as Harry's parents did the same. My mother's sacrifice saved me, throwing Voldemort's own magic back at him and he was caught in the vector of all three curses. The magical backfire blew up the whole house.

"Sirius and Dumbledore arrived with the Order minutes too late as back up. No sign of Voldemort. Ashes, pieces of house, broken glass. After some dire searching they found James and Lilies bodies, both burned and blasted beyond recognition. The only way they could tell who was who was the height difference.

"Then I started crying and they found me. I was lying under a part of the roof I guess, dirty and beat up, bleeding from my face like no tomorrow. It was a result of the explosion, marked by fatal magic so magic can't heal it. It took the sight from my left eye. Which is a bit of a pain sometimes, I have no depth perception and I was clumsy to start with so if I don't pay attention I bump into things.

"I lived though the majority of my childhood pretty peacefully despite. I had it easier than Harry anyway because my Grandmother raised me. He got handed over to these awful muggles.

"Voldemort wasn't dead of course, another curse of his saved him. But you knew that. There are some immutable facts that even alternate universes can't change. Or don't change.

"Follow me ahead eleven years. Voldemort came back, unofficially, in our first year. Harry fought him off. I helped a little.

"Harry was my best friend. Being mutually tied to a dark evil wizard sort of brings people together I suppose. We didn't know about the prophecy then, or _how_ we were tied.

"Harry, from the minute he hit Hogwarts, was the Golden Boy. Powerful magic like you've never seen just sprouted from his fingertips. He was smart enough to hold his own. He made smart friends. Hermione Granger, bookworm and renowned suck up. Ronald Weasley, pureblood and rich, but not snobby considering. Loyal as anything both of them.

"Despite his fame Harry was an awkward kid. Knobby and skinny, made completely of elbows and knees. Unlike me who resembled a walking marshmallow with freckles and sandy hair. I think we bonded so well because we were both so uncomfortable with our fame. As time passed he started to get the brunt of it. When it became clear that _he_ was the Quidditch star and _he_ was the one whose magic could blow a door from its hinges and through the next wall. Harry does magic like most people breath.

"I was quiet and pensive. A thinker mostly. But shier than Hermione and more inclined to panicking on tests. Harry was the joker. He never liked the extra attention but he's good with people. We would hide occasionally to get some peace and make up spells. I understood the philosophy very well, that was my strength, along with herbology, and Harry could do it easily once it was explained to him.

"We made a very good team. We still do. Never fight. We managed to defeat Voldemort a number of times before we even graduated.

"He and Draco never got along very well. Oil and water those too. Can't be in the same room without fighting like two territorial cats.

Draco. I suppose I had better explain that too, before I get ahead of myself.

"In our sixth year Draco got into some trouble. His father was a real bad ass, the nasty kind, and tried to force Draco to take the mark.

"Draco refused. At that time we weren't 'friends'. He and I just weren't at odds in the way he and Harry were. We could pass in the hallway and nod without jumping each other's throats.

"When Draco said 'no' his father was furious. Furious to the point of insanity. He proceeded to secretly storm the Slytherin common room and took Draco hostage there, along with the other Slytherins. He set up death eaters in the hallways of the dungeon and locked himself inside.

"It took ages before we could even figure out how he got in. Turned out to be Ron's rat. He was an animagi and a death eater named Peter Pettigrew.

"Draco got the worst of the situation. He was tortured and beaten and starved for the following three days.

"The halls of Hogwarts became a battleground. Most of the students were sent home. Harry had nowhere to go so I stayed with him. We stayed out of the way mostly and complained to each other. We wanted to do something.

"On the third day, in the middle of the night, Narcissa came to us. She said she could get us in if we promised to rescue her son. She wasn't marked and she seemed sincere. We decided to trust her. It was a stupidly made decision of course, very rash and not without it's consequences. Although none of them were Narcissa's fault. When we asked what to do about her husband she said she didn't care as long as we got Draco back. We agreed and left a note for Dumbledore and the others to find, hoping they would arrive at the right time.

"It was pitch in the hallways that night. A very inconvenient time for a new moon. She led us to a girl's bathroom and said something in parseltongue. She wasn't a natural speaker so she had to try a few times. Then the sink melted back and there was a large uncanny tunnel just stretching down forever.

"The legendary Chamber of Secrets. The basilisk was long dead. We found his skull. She lead us through the tunnels and to a portrait of the Slytherin bathrooms. From the other side, that is from the side in the bathroom, it was a painting of the Chamber of Secrets. It was also a one way door and a way in for us. She left us there. Because Lucius was inside she couldn't get to close or he would have noticed.

"Harry and I were terrified. But we were also royally pissed that someone as slimy as Lucius Malfoy had dared invade our home.

"Draco was in the shower rooms. Merlin, he was so beat up. His arm was broken and a few of his ribs were cracked I think. He was bruised and he'd been cut on. Harry left me with him and went to go sneak a look at the common room. Lucius was there with a few other death eaters, eating if you can believe it.

"Draco followed me without making any noises. He was in a lot of pain but adrenaline does amazing things and he just wanted out. I discovered how strong he was then. Stronger than I or Harry had believed. Stronger than I consider myself.

"Harry was seen and hell broke loose. Spells flew everywhere. I pulled Draco back with me and we ducked around the door-jam.

"Dumbledore and the other members of the Order burst in just in time to save our lives. Still not soon enough in my opinion.

"Lucius was the first human Harry ever killed. He did it deliberate and cold, staring him down. He was too damn young, but that's history now. At that point in his life he was still against using the Dark Arts, even in life threatening situations. He used a Protego instead, blasted Lucius like he was a brick wall.

"It was a bloody, nasty mess.

"Harry was inconsolable for days. He would do nothing but sleep and brood. Draco stayed with Professor Snape in his quarters until he recovered and for a while after. Snape and Dumbledore came to talk to us as soon as everything was sorted out.

"Again, I disagree with some of the judgments made. Even with everything going on I think that they could have made time that first night to speak with us.

"When they I arrived I remember being shocked by how livid Snape was. I'd never seem him like that and, as I'm sure you know, he's just a generally angry guy.

"'What's wrong with you two!' he roared at us. Dumbledore held up a hand and said something like-

'"Severus they don't know yet.'

"Snape exploded. He didn't yell exactly but a few windows went and he did some first class glaring. 'How could you not have told them?' he snarled. 'They're SIXTEEN! They graduate in a year!'

"Dumbledore looked tired. He told Snape to go look after Draco and asked us into his office.

"Then he told us the truth. He told us about the prophecy and what it meant.

"I remember being startled. No that's not the right word. Hurt maybe, or emotionally bruised? It was not a pleasant disillusionment. The prophecy was not entirely accurate anymore because of Lily and James's involvement. Their deaths were what gave Harry his natural power and talent. Their sacrifice in an effort to save me passed on as an unspoken, unvowed, debt between the Potter's and I. Certain magical ties follow down bloodlines and Harry is the last Potter. In a way he was made my destined protector of sorts. All of the events coalesced to fit. Harry is so powerful because the magic binding the both of us to Voldemort thinks he needs it to protect me.

"He's been very adamant about that in these last few years.

"At the time Harry was incensed. He said I was just as capable of holding my own as anyone. Which wasn't entirely true. My magical prowess has never been fantastic; I'm average at best.

"Both of us sobered when Dumbledore told us, in more words as opposed to less, that I had been born to die.

"That is what the third line means. "...and either must live at the hand of the other for neither can die while the other survives." It means that Voldemort cannot die while I am alive. When Voldemort tried to kill me he linked our lives together instead. Then my parents dying to protect me, and the Potters dying trying to save me, created a third link between Voldemort and Harry, through me. The old magic created by my parents sacrifice was twisted by the dark magic the Potters used, not through any fault of theirs that is simply how the theory worked, and the intention of both spells were combined.

"If you know anything about spell theory you know that intent is everything. If you say 'Wingardiumleviosa' but you really want the vase to explode it will probably blow into the air and combust. That's why small children coming into their magic tend to cause accidents. And why an overflow of emotion can cause a person to work accidental magic. There's a good deal more too it of course but I'll explain later, my goal here is to tell you the story.

"So all three of our lives are tied together. Harry in a more distant fashion. As long as I live Voldemort lives. But Voldemort's magic, which is no longer anything human I assure you, has been siphoning through the link somehow. It started eating me from the inside out and has been ever since. It erodes away at my magical core. Normally at the worst this would pose the threat of making me a muggle. But because of the magical mess from my childhood my life is tied to my core.

"I am dying slowly. I have been since that sixth year of school when Voldemort managed to acquire a corporeal body. You will already know the details of that since it cannot have been entirely different in your reality.

"You probably have a good question for me now. If I am dying anyway, and my death would kill Voldemort, who is obviously evil, why not just let it happen? He has been dormant for the past few years or so, since his last encounter with Harry left him so weak. But it is inevitable that he will find another way and strike out again, taking lives. So why don't I allow myself to die and take him with me?

"That is a sacrifice I would gladly make. And you must bear with me for a moment while I explain another fact about the universe that cannot be changed. There must always be balance. Existence, intelligent existence, is a complicated, fragile matter. What we consider disorder is really just a complex equilibrium. The kind of entropy the universe itself can exist in is far beyond us. _We_ cannot exist in it. The very atoms that make us up would fly apart.

"A stability of any kind is maintained with balance and counter balance. Struggle is necessary to keep the medium. In this case the juxtaposition resides between the two most powerful magical forces during this time. They are of course Harry and Voldemort. It's not a question of light and dark or good and evil. Through some cosmic mishap they both ended up with magic they weren't supposed to have.

"Imagine it like two sides of a scale. If you put something that is too heavy on one side while the other is empty the scale won't just be unbalanced, it will tip over. Especially if the heavy item is dropped. That's the basic principle. The reality is a little more like this: imagine that the universe is a scale and on each side are many people. They are not weighed by their size but by their magic. Magics in contrast with each other. They build up and subtract through time as people die and are born. So during different eras the scale tips more one way. In this era it is tipped more toward one side, the side that Harry is on. It isn't his presence alone that would disrupt equilibrium, but his presence without Voldemort's. Voldemort being on the opposite side. If his 'weight' were to suddenly to vanish, if he died, it would be the metaphorical equivalent of the heavy rock versus the empty dish. The whole thing goes over.

"Does that make sense? I cannot sacrifice myself; I cannot save my world from the darkest wizard we now know because if I do we all go out in one anti-climactic poof. That is the mistake. Not mine, no humans. It's an anomaly. And the universe is naturally designed to always try and correct itself. So it pulls other Neville's from their realities and lands them here just as the current Neville is about to die.

"And now I must tell you the cold, hard part of the truth. I am the eight Neville to arrive. The first, the original you might say though that is not entirely correct, died years ago. He was seventeen. Another Neville arrived and was taught just in time, all the memories were passed to him and the pattern persisted.

"And here is another thing. Draco doesn't know.

"We've kept it a secret from him, for his own sake. We switch places slowly. Draco thinks that it is the newcomer who dies, sacrificing _their _strength to me. I have never had the heart to tell him the truth. I am...we were, afraid it would hurt him too much.

"But we are all the same Neville. That is why I could speak so easily in the first person when I told the story. We don't have to be "taught" to act like our predecessor. We _are_ our predecessor. With each one of us the possibility to be just as I am exists already. So we are not changing or acting, we are becoming just one possibility of ourselves.

"The first Neville became lovers with Draco. As you can probably tell, we still are. Because I have the memories of all the Neville's who've passed it's as if I have been here the entire time. Does that makes sense? We aren't cheating Draco. I love him. I always have, and he loves me. He has been loving the same man, because I am the same man, so there is no morality issue.

"I can tell by your face that you don't quite believe me. That's all right. I didn't at first either. As I give you my memories, as you learn, you will come to understand it."

XXX

Neville felt sick. There were several things about the story Ambrose told that he did not like. He did not like that there was no mention of any of the substitute Neville's getting to say goodbye to their own friends. He did not like that, even if he could come to understand it in time, Draco was being lied to in such a horrendous way. And he did not like that it seemed he would be forced to lie as well.

Most of all, he did not like that he had no choice in the matter.

He looked at Ambrose and tried not to glare.

"I can't take your place." he said. "I'm not old enough." His head was feeling light and empty. Like information had been removed instead of placed within.

Ambrose nodded. "I know. We'd never be able to pull that off. We'll have to do it in the open this time." Then tears shocked into the older man's eyes. "Draco will have to let go. There is be way for me to prevent that now." He sniffed and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket quickly wiping the water away. "Well now." he said.

"What about me?"

"Maybe he'll fall in love with you separately. It's possible to love more than one person in a lifetime. After all it's only a chemical and psychological attraction. You are me so the chemical attraction will obviously be there-"

"No." Ambrose had misunderstood. "I mean what happens to me?"

Ambrose sighed. "I'll teach you as I was taught. Give you the memories you need. It won't be easy of course, especially when you receive your very own scar." he pointed at his left eye and grinned.

"I will still get the scar?" asked Neville and then realized that Ambrose hadn't told him how he had gotten his. Had he left that out on purpose?

"Yes you will. Through an accident of some kind probably. But not until the time is right. Don't worry about that now."

Neville looked at Ambrose and tried to imagine himself sitting there, explaining the same things to another him. Would he really be so calm?

_The boy in the mirror._ That hadn't been his desire he was seeing after all. It was his future. How the hell did that work he wondered?

"Could I...have some time to myself please?" Neville asked. Ambrose left the room.

Neville sat alone on his bed. He felt ugly on the inside.

The mirror was still sitting in the corner of the room. The last little corner of his life, just an empty room behind some glass. If someone else, someone from back home, were to stand in front of it would they see him? Could he maybe say goodbye that way?

He jumped off the bed. The cold stone room of Hogwarts was still within. So then there was a chance of someone coming to see if he was there. Minerva had probably figured out where he spent most of his nights if Harry hadn't.

_So if I just check it often enough maybe someone will show up. I can wave. _

And if no one came? Then he would be another belated tragedy of the war. His name would be said along side the tales of Sirius Black and Remus Lupin and Fred Weasley.

_"Neville Longbottom. Yes, I knew him."_ Harry would say. _"He helped me win the war. Then he vanished a year later. No one knows where." _There would always be that tiny glimmer of doubt concerning his "death". Every now and then someone would think and wonder if maybe he was still alive somewhere, living a secret life.

They would never know.

XXX

Neville Longbottom was gone. Gone, and that was the right word exactly. He wasn't dead, as far as Minerva knew. He wasn't missing. He was gone. His things were still in his room. His bed was rumpled with the blankets pulled up, like he had faded away sleeping beneath them.

And now there were three young heroes in her office who refused to be consoled. They needed answers and she had none to give.

"I don't know." she told them. "I am doing all I can but-" but he was gone. She didn't need to say it because they knew.

In the forefront of her mind was the memory of yesterday afternoon. Neville standing at the other end of a hallway transparent in the sunlight. Had he known then that he would leave? Had she known she would never see him again?

She knew now.

Minerva bent her had in grief with her three Gryffindors.

"I'm sorry." she whispered to them.

XXX

It fell to Harry, Hermione and Ron to pack Neville's things.

If it hadn't fallen to them they would have fought for the right anyway.

Hermione sat in front of his open trunk, meticulously folding every article of clothing and organizing all his school things. Ron stood over her should trying to look helpful. Harry sat on the bed, watching, feeling angry and lost.

"Were will all this go?" he asked.

Hermione shrugged. "I don't know. All of his relatives are dead so there isn't really anyone to send it too."

"Maybe I should take it." Harry spoke too quickly and it made Hermione look sharply at him.

Ron snorted. "Because you don't already have enough emotional baggage."

"Well we can't just toss them out. Neville was a hero, we should-"

"Hang on to them, Harry?" Hermione asked. "Just in case he comes back? Or for the emotional value?"

"I just don't think we should let go so quickly."

"Don't think of it as letting go mate." Ron told him. "Think of it as letting Neville have his peace. He deserves some if anyone does."

Harry could agree with that. "I'm just afraid-"

"You won't forget Harry." Hermione was gentle. "How could we ever forget him?" She opened her mouth, like maybe there was more to say. There wasn't. Ron wrapped his arms around her and she turned at an awkward angle to hide her face in his shoulder.

Harry sat and listened to the silence. In it, somewhere, was a goodbye he'd never gotten.

XXX

Neville sat in the library on a cushion on the floor. Next to him, just in reach if he stretched, was a small vial with a headache potion in it and a bar of chocolate. Draco had given both to him in the interest of his comfort. He was standing in the doorway, leaning, as he had done on the day Neville had arrived.

"Take the potion first." he said. "The headache you get won't be bad at first but if you try and chew with it I promise it will get worse. Once you swallow the potion wait ten seconds for it to fully take effect. No standing, no jumping jacks. And eat _all_ the chocolate." Draco talked like he did this every day. "In fact before the week is out I imagine you will be sick of chocolate." He mused down at the little bar. "Maybe I can experiment with putting the same effects into different foods. Something receptive to other chemicals of course...are you a fan of bananas?"

"Uh. I suppose." said Neville.

Ambrose walked in. Draco nodded at him, brushing his hand along the back of Ambrose's neck before leaving.

"So you told him I guess."

Ambrose smiled without smiling. "Yes. A few days ago. He's taking it well at the moment, surprisingly well actually. He didn't even blow anything up." Ambrose sat on the pillow across from Neville. "Draco isn't one for repression so I don't imagine he will get any worse until the end. Then maybe I think it will be too real even for his objective mind.

"What surprised me the most is that he offered to help. Right away. I didn't even have to ask." Ambrose took a deep breath. "Okay, here we go. Just close your eyes and brace yourself because there's not much else you can do."

Neville swallowed. He closed his eyes against the huge library of Malfoy Mansion. It was more like a large ballroom with books for walls and comfy furniture.

"You should probably know that I have no experience with Occlumency and most likely suck at it." he announced.

Ambrose chuckled. "You could be an expert Occlumens and it wouldn't make any difference in this case. The memories are yours technically, and they will go to you whether you are ready or not. You cannot keep out what is theoretically already inside after all."

"What?"

"Here we go." Neville felt a cool fingertip touch the center of his forehead. He felt a wash of burning cold. He groped his hand out into the blackness, flailing, trying to grab a hold of something before he was gone. He lost all sensation in his face and chest.

He opened his eyes to find he was staring at the ceiling. Ambrose was kneeling next to him, the chocolate and the potion in his hands. Dark wood in circles above him, outlining the distant murals. Neville concentrated on them for a moment. He could feel the headache at the base of his skull and as soon as he moved it would come.

"Can you sit up?" Ambrose asked him.

Neville took one deep breath, the carpet rough beneath his palms, and pushed up.

It felt like he was hitting the bottom of a long drop.

"Here." Ambrose handed him the headache potion as the headache slammed into the front of his skull.

Neville dumped it down his throat in one jerky motion. He had one frightening wave of nausea before the potion numbed it away.

"How many times do we have to do this?" he asked. His voice crackled and broke._ Did I scream?_

"A few. But we will put as much time as possible between each transfer."

"I'm going to go take a nap."

Ambrose smiled at him. He understood.

"Of course Neville. Each your chocolate."

Neville stuffed his mouth with a fistful of the chocolate bar and took the rest to eat on the way. His mind still held the vivid picture of Draco before his eyes. Sixteen years old on the floor of the Slytherin bathrooms, bleeding and shivering. Blue lips, swollen eyes, struggling chest. He was looking up at Neville, his arms wrapped around his stomach, uttering one word that no one had ever said so powerfully before.

"Longbottom?"


	3. 03

03

_On the stormy sea of moving emotion  
__tossed about I'm like a ship on the ocean  
__I set a course for winds of fortune  
__But I hear the voices say!_

Neville woke up to the creeping feeling of the headache potion wearing off. It started in his brain and worked out the base of his skull and through his spine. He sat up slowly, waiting, as he always did, for the headache to come back. It didn't, it never had.

His bedroom was dark because he'd drawn the curtains. Neville padded over and opened them now. It was getting towards dusk, his favorite time of day. His room was on the west side of the manor so the sun didn't shine through his window until the end of the day.

Neville turned his back to the window and let himself feel the warmth on his shoulders. His long shadow cast across the room to the wall and the door, the wood healthy and deep in the orange light.

This had finally started to feel like _his_ room. He didn't wake up expecting the Gryffindor dorm room anymore. He didn't listen for the snoring of the other boys or the shrieking of the girls down in the common room. There was peace for him here.

Or almost peace. The mirror still watched from the corner of the room. He had pushed it farther back against the wall, in the only nook where the sunlight never got. It leaned there, metal and cold.

Neville walked over to stand in front of it, leaving the warm glow. He checked the mirror every time he came in here.

The stone room of Hogwarts was still empty within. It was always empty. Neville had wondered if maybe it wasn't a doorway after all and the mirror was simply showing him what he wanted to see inside.

_Except that then it would be showing me my friends so I could say goodbye._

His toes dug into the carpet.

Two months was too long. It was too late for goodbyes now.

Neville fisted his hand and jammed it in his pocket.

"It has to go." he said to himself. "It's distracting me from the things I should be concentrating on." he was using his best Ambrose voice. Now he used his best Ambrose stare to consider the thing. "I hate you." he told the mirror.

"It doesn't match the decor anyway."

Behind him was Draco in the doorway, as he often was.

"No it doesn't. Can we move it?" Neville looked at Draco who looked back with a sadness.

"Certainly we can. Would you like it moved to another plane of existence or sent into orbit?"

Neville smiled in spite of his dreary mood.

"I was thinking somewhere less destructive. The basement?"

"I suppose the basement will have to do." said Draco and nodded. "Dinner first then we'll move the mirror." Draco stepped back from the door. The late sunlight on his hair made it fiery and bright. He waited.

Neville backed away from the mirror, tearing his eyes from the seductive surface.

XXX

Ambrose spit into the sink and wiped his mouth with his thumb. The red and pink swirls funneled slowly down the sloped white porcelain to the drain in the center. He turned on the water to speed its process. Cupping his hands he splashed some water onto his face and sipped a bit. Then he swished, and spit.

The silence in the room when he turned off the faucet was loud.

In the glass of the mirror his face was tired and worn. The dark circles under his eyes were pronounced. His hair was dull and his pupils had trouble focusing. He was pale and yellowy white, like sun-faded parchment.

_This is happening too fast. _

He would be dead before the month was out if this continued.

Ambrose scowled at himself. _This isn't right. I should have had almost a year. _On top of this his stomach was now paining him. It clenched and unclenched and refused to let him relax. He'd been experiencing it for days, every time he looked into a mirror.

_Terror._ He realized at last. _I am afraid to die._ Neville would feel it too.

Ambrose traced the deep lines in his hand, remembering his own talks with the previous Ambrose. Or perhaps it was the previous Ambrose's talks with the one prior to him; it was hard to tell anymore. The more he dwelled on every death he'd seen the more he was realizing the reality of the person he had chosen to be. He regretted more often now the thing he had chosen not to be.

It hurt.

_I'm not a teacher I'm a sophist. _

But there was no choice. It was Neville or everyone else.

If Dumbledore had still been around he might have told Ambrose that he was making a hard decision. He would say that few people had the spine to do the right thing in times like this and they were lucky that he was around to make it for them.

Ambrose sat himself on the edge of the bathtub and thought about giving a tear or two to the matter. In the end he gave the matter nothing, but stood and walked on his unsteady legs to the library. If he wasn't going to die today he still had things to do.

XXX

Minerva went alone to the graves of Frank and Alice Longbottom. They stood with the rest of the family plot. Their graves new, hardly weathered, standing side by side like patient stone soldiers. Waiting.

Minerva wondered how long it would be before they gave up, gave in, and gave Neville a stone of his own. She scuffed her foot against the empty ground where it might go. Where no hole would ever be dug, no body placed. It would be the stone, just a mark in history to leave a record. Blank, with no date of death.

Somehow that gave her comfort.

The flower she had brought with her could survive through just about any kind of weather or season. Like Neville. She knelt down on her knees, heedless of the dirt, and dug a hole between the two gravestones. She filled in the hole with her bare hands, patting the ground flat again with her palms.

In the fading sunlight the yellow buds looked red. They rose up, facing skyward, on the ends of slender stems.

"Goodbye Neville."

Minerva walked away, leaving the plant to grow take root and grow.

XXX

In the interest of company while he worried, Neville went in search of Draco. He couldn't very well go to Ambrose since his teacher was the source of his mental muddle. The man looked worse and worse everyday. His skin got paler, his eyes got redder. And while Neville knew that was _supposed_ to happen he was sure it wasn't supposed to be happening now. He hadn't even been here half a year yet.

Unfortunately finding Draco was proving less easy than he had assumed. The study was empty, the door to the bedroom he and Ambrose shared was wide open but that room was also empty. The library was dark and cold. Ambrose was in the kitchen sipping honey tea and looking exhausted. Neville was not allowed into the cellar yet and the dining room was only used for meals.

Neville climbed stairs one at a time, watching his feet pass over the green and blue carpet. He had expected dust but the stairs were clean. The west wing, he was told, wasn't used much anymore. Not since Draco's parents had both been killed in the war.

Draco was an astronomer in his spare time, and a writer. The potions business was just for profit; to keep a stable income because it was never wise to live simply on the family fortune. Draco's words.

It was more complicated than that but Neville would hardly have understood anymore if it had been explained to him.

Neville emerged in the west tower. It was open with no roof and short walls to give a good view of the horizon. The stones beneath his feet reminded him of the floor of the stone room he had visited so often in Hogwarts. Now he wore slippers to keep warm. He walked onto the roof and let his footsteps announce him.

Draco was standing pensively over series of charts, some of them paper some of them suspended symbols of light. The symbols in the air were constantly rotating and rearranging themselves, as Draco dictated they should Neville supposed.

This was Draco in his element. Standing in slate robes in the cool October air. His gray eyes were bright like the stars above him.

"There isn't any light pollution on the mountain from the muggle cities and towns. That's one of the reasons my ancestors chose this spot for the manor."

"There were other astronomers in your family?" Neville thought at the last minute that it might have been less rude for him to hide his surprise. Draco flashed a grin at him.

"The Malfoys have been proud, stuck up and very often small minded bigots. But they have _always_ appreciated beauty." Draco craned his neck up to the sky now. "I am the first astronomer in the family since my great uncle."

Neville followed Draco's gaze upwards and saw the constellations in their rotation between the summer and winter sky. They were clear, and bigger than he remembered. _But when was the last time I bothered to look?_

"So what is it then?" Draco asked. Neville snapped his head back down and remembered the knot of tension in-between his shoulder blades.

He stuffed his cold fingers into the pockets of his pajamas. "Ambrose is really sick, I think. I mean, I know about the curse and all but I think he's getting worse too fast or something. At least, I don't feel like he should be-" Neville fished around for a word and came up with a few convoluted hand gestures and a shrug. "so soon." he finished quietly.

Draco swished his wand. The maps rolled themselves up neatly and the runes and symbols evaporated.

"He knows." he said. "And he knows that we've noticed. He hasn't bothered to try and cover it up which means he will come clean very soon. When he's ready." Ready for what Neville wondered? "It might seem silly to you now. If we all know why not talk about it? This is his great weakness. You and I will both be hurt by the conversation. He doesn't want that. And maybe he isn't quite ready to admit it either. But I've been with the man s-...for a long time. He deserves to be allowed his few moments of weakness if anyone does."

Neville understood. He thought about Ambrose, whose body was slowly decaying with rotten magic from the inside out. Who had learned six times to be himself all over again. Who had to stay alive just so everyone else could keep living and never know what he was doing for them. Who had to be selfless so the rest of the world could keep being self-centered.

"He's human." Neville's heard his mouth say, as if had missed that before. Ambrose was human. He had weaknesses and fears.

_He must be terrified._

"He is." said Draco. "More so than the rest of us perhaps."

Neville looked at Draco. Now he didn't understand.

"What does it mean to be human?" Draco asked. With just the light of the stars his robes looked like silver liquid. His hair was white and brushed back to stay out of his eyes. "Some say it's the questions we ask." Neville suddenly felt older, and his vision narrowed to include only Draco and the sky. "Some say it's the answers we give." The distinct impression of a different life that was not his own came upon him and he was standing before a prophet of the stars. "Most say it is the way we live." Neville wondered briefly about ancestral memory, if in his genes were the hidden memories of every Longbottom dead long before his own short life. "Ambrose is living to die. What could be more human than that?"

Neville was locked into Draco's ancient stare. His breath pulled in and out of his lungs air from a thousand years ago.

"Nothing." he answered. Then a thorn tearing it's way desperately to the surface. Neville's own voice, all his own, bubbled out. "I don't want him to die."

Draco looked at him shocked, then sad. "Me either." The prophet was gone.

Neville knew then that, whatever happened, it would not be okay. Ambrose was not going to be okay. He'd known that since he came, now he had to accept it.

The knowledge was freeing. No, Ambrose would not be okay, and neither would _he_ be for a while. But he would be around to take Ambrose's place, to fit perfectly into the mold. And so _Neville_ would not die. Because Ambrose would be reborn again through him when another Neville broke through.

All his teachings, the things he had repeated to himself over and over, seeped in like water to deep thirsty roots.

_"You will come to understand it as I do."_ Ambrose had said.

XXX

Neville watched his teacher stumble apologetically to the bathroom, his hand clamped over his mouth. He watched the carpet and listened to the sounds of retching and imagined that he could smell the blood in the sink. He watched the wall as the water ran and he watched Ambrose emerge again looking haggard and serious.

Ambrose opened his mouth to speak.

"I know." Neville told him. "Soon."

Ambrose gave him a smile that was not a smile.

_Soon._

XXX

Neville sat in the kitchen feeling at ease despite all that was happening and thought about the person he was becoming. Then he thought he might make some toast. Then Draco walked in.

And ruined everything.

"What is your opinion of your education?" he asked quietly. The tilt of his shoulder into the doorframe was unnatural today.

"Good." Neville answered.

"As is your opinion of your educator I suppose."

"Yes. Why, is yours something different?" Too late Neville realized how he sounded.

Draco gave him a weary look. "You know it isn't. I'm sorry I didn't mean to sound so bitter." Neville looked down embarrassed. _He_ hadn't meant to sound so self-righteous. Draco had entered the kitchen and was standing as if the kitchen tile had a vicious grip on his feet and would not let go. He searched Neville's face carefully in a silence Neville didn't dare interrupt. At length Draco came to a decision and spoke again.

"What was the first thing that Ambrose taught you?"

"Huh?"

"The nature of all things." Draco prompted.

"_Oh._ That everything is quantifiable. Everything can be explained and it is only our inability as humans to accept certain answers that make the universe so mysterious."

"Quoted verbatim." Draco sighed. It was mid afternoon and the kitchen caught the early morning light so the room was dim. "I am not your teacher Neville. But I will teach you something. And I feel bad about it. It's selfish of me. But I..." Draco shook his head. "No, you will either forgive me or you will not. I will not try to excuse myself."

Neville didn't speak. He listened.

"I am going to disprove to you what Nev- What Ambrose took those first few days to prove.

"Ambrose believes that everything can be quantified. Even love. For him that doesn't cheapen our relationship. It's very real to him as long as he can feel it. He is human and is ruled by human laws even if he knows how they work. And I have never felt unloved or cheated due to his theories. He treats me as well, better, than any other lover even though he believes that it is no more than a chemical and a psychological attraction. His love to me is not false. But his theory is.

"Neville, I pray you never tell him this. Because I do love him and if he knew it would hurt him badly." Draco shook his head and took awkward steps to the stool across from Neville. He sat down heavily and gripped his face in his hands. "I don't want to hurt him." Draco breathed.

Neville waited. His spine had snapped straight. He sat still, watching the unreal scene before him.

"Do you know how many times I have loved 'the same man' in the past few years?"

One question. That was all it took to undo Ambrose's teaching. All that was needed to shake the stability out of Neville's core. Everything required to uproot his confidence and leave him naked and unsure.

"Seven." Draco continued hoarsely. "I have loved the same man seven times. I know you understand what I mean. Ambrose will have had to tell you.

"I cannot keep this up. Falling love with the same man again and again, knowing that he is only going to die soon and another will take his place. The sickness of heartbreak for months and months, the potions I take to hide it. We've both lied to each other for a long time, Ambrose and I." Draco laughed, an echo of a shadow of the real thing. He was crying. "Do you think us sick? That it's wrong of us both to continue loving through the foundation of falsehoods we built? Do you hate us? Pity us?" he choked.

"It doesn't matter. Ambrose would argue that it has always been one man. That they are the same person, and they are. They are _exactly_ the same, every time. And every time he dies and breaks my heart it doesn't get easier. And every time I want to fucking hate him and I can't. Neville I can't. Because I love him. I love him. And I want him to keep thinking I am happy because he _needs_ that. He needs to know that I am okay if he can't be. And he _keeps dying._ He keeps dying I-" Draco broke off in sobs.

"Tell me what to do." Neville managed. His own eyes stung terribly, his chest was tight.

"I always know." Draco whispered. "Every time he touched me, I recall every night exactly. I knew right away it was not the same man getting into the bed with me. Not the same man whispering, holding me." Draco's shoulders shook and his hands gripped whitely in his hair. For a panicked moment Neville wondered what would happen if Ambrose walked in. "He would always cry with me, tell me that another Neville had passed away for _him_ but I knew. I knew. And I'm selfish, I don't live for the world, or die for it. Neville," Draco reached across the table and looked up, grabbing one of Neville's hand with his own. It was wet with his tears.

"I cannot. Do this. Again." he was pleading. "Don't be the you he is making you into. Be another possibility. Find your own self, just please be different. Be anything. But don't be him."

Neville was crying now. He gripped Draco's hand back and bent over it with his face, dropping his own tears onto the knuckles.

"I'll try." he whispered. He didn't know how but he couldn't say no.

"Oh gods," Draco buried his face in his tangled arms, still holding Neville tightly. "Do you forgive me?" he asked. "Can you? Ever?"

"I forgive you." Neville stuttered.

They cried together for a while. In the kitchen with the sun shining brightly outside, they cried as if he was dead already. Thirty minutes later Draco took his hand back and stood to make something to eat, thoughtfully adding enough for Neville as well.

Neville, feeling as if he could never again ask a question that would shock Draco or make him uncomfortable, decided that now was as good a time as any to humiliate himself. He waited until Draco had stepped back from the stove (ignoring that _Draco_ was cooking like a _muggle_) and looked the older man in the face.

"Do you think there will ever be anything between us?" he asked.

Draco took a long moment to answer. He smiled before he spoke.

"I think the possibility is there."

XXX

Neville came up from the new memory as he always did, with a gasp and a sputter. It was like breaking out of a freezing pond through a thin sheet of ice to find he was in a desert and the air was hot and dry. He took a deep breath and rolled over, rubbing his head with his hands.

"Ugnh." he said. "Remind me again why I do this? Oh yes, that's right, to save the world." Neville pushed up slowly, keeping his eyes closed against that damned helpless world.

No one answered him.

Panic threw his eyes open. He knew, even against the killing headache and the disorientation, _oh_ he knew.

Neville scrambled off of his pillow to the still form of his teacher. Ambrose lie opposite him, face to the ceiling. His mouth and chin were smeared unpleasantly with red and pink. It came from between his lips and his nose and there was a frightening amount of it on the floor.

His chest rose once, with a horrible rasping noise.

"Shit! Ambrose, Ambrose!" Neville held his hands just above his teacher, wanting to do something, not knowing what to do. He turned his head and screamed Draco's name at the door. "Ambrose? Oh Merlin." He moved his hand closer then farther away. Another breath, the same as the last.

Draco blew into the study, literally. The door blasted open just before he actual walked through it. His gaze slammed into Neville.

"Ambrose." he ran over and knelt down. He reached and pulled the white handkerchief from Ambrose's pocket and started wiping at his face and neck. "Ambrose, can you hear me? Nev?"

Ambrose made some sort of gasping effort and his eyes flickered open and closed again. His mouth opened.

"Don't try to talk." Draco ordered. "I'm going to clean you up and get you into a bed. You can take Neville's pain potion and Neville is going to call Harry." A significant glance.

Neville was stunned into inaction for a moment. Call Harry? He hadn't even been mentioned to Harry yet. Not this Harry, not their Harry. What would he say?

_"Help. Now." Would be a start._ He nodded at Draco and bolted from the library.

The main fireplace was in the living room. Neville flew down the hallway and nearly rolled down the small flight of stairs. His heart had split itself and was pushing his feet to go faster and pounding with the pain in his head.

The floo powder was in a blue jar on the mantel piece. He'd seen Draco use it to fire call Ron once. As he reached up and grabbed a fistful it occurred to Neville that he had _no idea_ where Harry lived.

The powder was damp in his shaking fingers, it stuck all over his sweaty hands. He chucked it as hard as he could into the fire and yelled "Harry Potter!" hoping the fire would know what to do.

Then he stuck his head in.

It spun. It was like riding out a cyclone with his head. His brains were being pulverized to a thick smooth juice that would dribble out his nose. It just kept spinning and didn't stop anywhere. Neville jerked his head out of the fire and coughed away ashes. It still roared with the magic.

"Harry!" he yelled at the fire. "It's Neville. We need you here NOW!" The fire died away with his last word and flickered normally. Neville stepped back shaking.

_Please let him have heard me. Please. Please._

The fire spat up again, red and green. Harry Potter, tall as life, taller than Neville remembered, stepped out.

"Nev-" Harry stopped when he saw Neville. "What-?"

"I'm a different Neville. You're Neville is dying I think. Draco told me to call you." Either Harry had been told about the last few years or he had an amazing ability to prioritize because he didn't ask questions. He only snapped, "Show me."

Neville ran back up the hallway, gasping. Harry Potter, or _a_ Harry Potter, jogged behind him. He grabbed Neville's arm when he almost tripped again on the stairs and gave him a helpful haul.

In the study, Draco was speaking quietly to Ambrose in short, soothing sentences. His head was bowed and the sunlight from the curtains he had opened fell in shafts just over him and onto the wall. He and Ambrose were untouched by the setting rays.

Harry pushed past Neville and hurried over. Draco was still trying to wipe the blood away. Neville walked over, miserable and useless. Draco's face was composed. His hand was steady. He didn't glance up at Neville once.

Harry's hands were doing the things that Neville wished he had known. They flew from Neville's pulse to his stomach and waved, yielding different colors or symbols in the air that Neville didn't know how to interpret.

"Where's the closest bed?" he asked. His hand fell on Neville's forehead. "He isn't in pain."

"I gave him a pain potion." Draco explained.

"My room is just up the hall." said Neville. Harry nodded and stood. He pulled his wand out of his robes and waved them. Ambrose rose gently from the floor. His face was relaxed now instead of pinched and his eyes were open again. He smiled strangely at Neville as he floated by. Neville tried to smile back. His temples pounded and he felt sick. He stepped backwards until his the back of his knees hit the couch and sat down.

Harry stepped out behind Ambrose and Draco followed. Neville watched them go. If they needed him they would call. And he didn't want to see. The weight of his headache bent him forward until he was leaning with his arms on his thighs. Somehow his eyes landed where Ambrose had bled on the floor. The sunlight had found it now and it glittered up at him. It was pretty almost, where it pooled in the middle still sinking into the carpet.

Neville closed bent his head all the way down and listened to his headache pound.

A hand touched his shoulder gently. He jerked up. It was Draco.

"Harry's doing what he can."

Neville nodded and felt his brains jangle around. He stopped. He breathed. He reached out for the new world that had been solid beneath him and found nothing. "I'm not ready." he told Draco. The hand on his shoulder squeezed. It was supposed to be a gesture of comfort. An 'I understand' from one friend to another.

All it did was remind Neville of his promise. What if he wasn't strong enough to keep it? What if he couldn't do it?

His stomach coiled and his mind burned. He ripped away from Draco and fled before he could lash out. Before he could let himself be angry. His wand was in his hand. He didn't run, he walked, from the library to the basement door. He still hadn't been down there. He probably wasn't allowed yet.

He didn't care. Neville reached into that boiling anger and pulled out just enough to blow that fucking door off it's fucking hinges. It splintered. Neville stormed down the steps and went like a whirlwind though the rooms of the basement until he found the one with the mirror.

It was a cold stone room. Empty of anything but the mirror. _Like the room at Hogwarts._ Back home. Where he couldn't go anymore. Where everyone had cried over losing him and moved on with their lives by now.

No moonlight gave the glass a quiet serenity. The flickering torches that had come to light at his approach gave it a grotesque face. The red light dug under the soft contours and made them sharp and ugly.

Neville stood before it and looked into the eyes of his cold hard past through his new eyes. Ambrose's eyes. The future Draco had already told him he couldn't have. He bit down hard on his lip. The figures in the mirror were warping and changing between his supposed desires. Or his supposed futures, he had never found out which. His wand shook with his hand and Neville swore at it, dashing it against the surface of the mirror with a hard throw.

"I hate you!" he shrieked at the empty mirror.

The mirror was like the surface of a troubled pond. It rose and dipped, distorting it's insides, rippling. Neville could see himself now, his own face bubbling, standing in the front with Draco and Ambrose behind him.

But he couldn't have that. He _knew_ he couldn't have that so why would the mirror even show him?

Then there was Hogwarts and he was there. Sitting alone, unhappy, weak, on the floor. He wanted to go back. He wanted to be home with his friends...

_A simpering helpless boy. Unneeded. _No. He couldn't want that. He wouldn't allow himself to want that. _That_ Neville was pathetic.

Ambrose stood in front of him, roiling, boiling, tossing within the mirror. Except he knew it wasn't Ambrose. It was him a few years from now. He was completely calm, smiling serenely with a book tucked under his arm. Draco was next to him grinning.

He couldn't have that either. He had promised Draco. He couldn't have that. The future Ambrose had promised him, where he would be useful and in control of his own life. Where he knew what was going on. _Draco_ had taken that from him.

No. He had agreed not to be like that. Draco had it worse than he did. Neville stepped away, trying to make the mirror change again. He wished for something else, for Hogwarts again. It stayed the same.

"No." Neville snarled at it. The peaceful expression followed him. He felt sick to his stomach, like there was acid in his stomach and its gases were rising up and poisoning his throat. He shook his head. "NO!" he yelled. "NO. NO. NO. Fuck YOU!"

He took a step back. "NO!" Then rushed forward at it, like a man trying to scare off a stubborn wolf.

The glass exploded. It shattered outwards. Neville was so angry and surprised he didn't even react. The glass sliced by him, stinging him, lancing across his left eye. He stood still until the sound of falling, skipping glass had faded. He tried to blink and cried out with the shock of pain. His hand hopped up to his face as blood dripped into his mouth. He could feel with his fingertips that the glass had cut him clean though the eyelid. Half panicking he forced the eye open again and tried to clean it out.

It was like it was still closed. The eye was blind. The blood kept coming.

Neville sobbed once it hurt so bad. He tried to stem the flow with his sleeve, stumbling back towards the stairs. He remembered something.

Cold shot down his spine and right out his toes. It numbed his pain and sent his chest into a pounding rushing fright. He was scarred. He was blind in one eye.

_"Through an accident of some kind probably. But not until the very end."_

Neville starting running. He slipped on the damn glass, caught himself on his hands and kept going. He fumbled the whole way up the stairs, misjudging the distances. Ambrose had been right, no depth perception.

Ambrose.

Ambrose was dead.

He crashed through the study between his room and the hallway. He tripped on the coffee and table and broke it. His light was dim in the bedroom. He could see Ambrose inside through the doorway, on the bed, pale and thin.

Ambrose looked like he was sleeping. Neville stepped into the doorway. Draco sat on the edge of the bed crying into the blanket. Harry stood at the foot of the bed staring like he couldn't believe it. How much did he know?

He looked over when Neville entered.

"Bloody hell Neville. Your face!" Harry crossed the room in quick long strides. Strong fingers under Neville's chin. Neville resisted them, trying to keep his eyes on Ambrose. On his dead teacher. "It's cut bad." Harry was saying. "Neville- Hey easy, let me-" Neville twisted away successful and tried to circle around to get closer to the bed. Harry followed and caught him, Neville pushed at the grabbing hands, annoyed, distracted.

"I'm not ready." he told the peaceful face. Just like he had told Draco. "I"m not ready." That was for Harry. "We weren't finished I'm..." he pulled closer and reached out. He wanted to touch the sheets over his chest, hold his hand, but his own were covered with the blood from his cut.

"Neville." Draco's voice broke though the tunnel vision. He was there now on his left.

_My promise._ He'd said he'd be different. Said he wouldn't be Ambrose. But he didn't know who else to be. He hadn't been taught how, he didn't know.

"I'm sorry." he told Draco. Poor Draco who would have to go through all that pain again now. Because Neville was _still weak_, because he couldn't keep his promise. He started to cry, the tears sizzled at his cut, the ground was fading away. "I tried. I don't think I can do it. I don't know who to be. I don't, I can't...I'm sorry. Sorry." He shook his head hard and lost his legs. They faded away with the floor.

"Whoa!!" Someone had a good grip on him. Draco, his gray eyes were still red and puffed. He looked scared.

_He should be._ Neville thought, suddenly detached. _If he doesn't let go he'll fade away with me._

"I'm really sorry." he said again. Harry was speaking.

"It's deep." he was saying. "The eyelid is severed completely, it will never heal right. He needs-"

"Hey." Neville grabbed onto Draco's sleeve to get his attention. Draco had to know, he had to understand and it was almost too late. His stomach and chest had vanished now too. "I'm sorry I can't keep my promise."

His shoulders, his neck.

"You already have." said Draco's voice, but Draco wasn't there with it. Neville didn't know what that meant. He didn't know anything.

Because the world was gone.

Or rather, Neville was gone from the world.


	4. 04

The finale. Thank you for reading.

04

_Carry on my wayward son  
There'll be peace when you are done  
Lay your weary head to rest  
And don't you cry no more._

A dream that Neville did not remember ended with the words "just give it water!" And he woke up saying them.

"What?" asked someone.

Neville shook his head. His brain sloshed around inside. He opened his mouth and sucked in air, his chest expanded painfully which was almost more than he had expected. It felt like his lungs were filled with solid stone.

His eyes, eye, focused. Harry was sitting in a chair by his bed. Not his bed, another bed. Draco's bed? Neville let himself stare while the minutes went by. The cotton in his head worked around and around, finding memories, scrambling and rearranging them.

Ambrose. _Is dead._ And he had failed.

Tears in the corner of his eyes. He tried to pull himself back, and reached up to wipe at his face. There was a large bandage obstructing the way to his left eye. Neville shrugged and let the tears fall. He thought he should have been crying harder, sobbing and screaming. But when he reached down the slow and steady stream was all he had.

He gave up on his grief for the moment, he was sure it would come back for him later.

Harry was wearing different clothes. Neville frowned.

"What day is it?"

"Tuesday."

"...That would help more if I knew what day it was when-"

"Sunday. You've been in and out on us for two days."

"I woke up before?"

Harry nodded. "A few times. Nothing lucid of course."

"Of course. Um...was I really that sick? I only cut myself I thought." How much had he bled?

"You cut yourself, and bled a lot, right after receiving some direct memories from Ambrose. Which is hard enough on the brain as it is. After running everywhere, and blowing up a mirror with pure magic and no wand. After suffering a huge emotional shock..." Harry quirked an eyebrow.

"Oh." said Neville. "I'm, uh, really sorry about...uh..." And _there_ was the panic and the agony. Neville shook his head hard, then regretted it. Harry put a hand on his shoulder, it was heavy but it felt good. Like he'd been floating in space and needed some weight to keep him down.

"Easy." Harry chided. "There's nothing for you to apologize for. You haven't done anything wrong. Well you made a royal mess downstairs, but that was easy enough to clean up."

Neville shook, waved his hands. Harry didn't understand. "I made a promise to Draco. I promised him I would be different and I don't think I can. I'm not..." Neville stopped. In his memories he saw Draco at the edge of Ambrose's bed again. "How is he?"

Harry's eyes flickered away for a minute, over Neville's head to the door. "He's alright."

"Do you think he will ever forgive me?"

Harry didn't say anything. Another voice from behind answered.

"Ambrose would never have asked that question."

Draco's voice. Neville jumped and blushed, shoot a glare at Harry. _I didn't know he was in the room!_ He turned his head to see. Draco approached, smiling without looking happy.

"I don't –" said Neville. And then he did. He wasn't Ambrose. He wasn't even close. Ambrose was composed, he was freaking out. Ambrose was analytical and objective, Neville could still hardly think he was so rattled.

Neville wasn't Ambrose he was himself. Another creature entirely. He smiled back at Draco.

"There's some soup in the kitchen. I'll go fetch you some."

"Thank you."

Draco paused in the doorway. "Indeed." he said softly, then he was gone. Neville sighed and leaned back into his pillow. Anything that he had thought he needed to say to Draco was forgotten. And Draco had said everything else.

Harry had been watching.

"Draco explained the situation to me."

Neville looked up skeptically at Harry.

"Everything?" he asked.

"Everything I needed to know. It's amazing isn't it? That they all managed for so long."

"He, technically." Neville thought he could still be true to some of what Ambrose had taught him. "They were all the same person after all."

"So I was told. How does it feel to be the odd one out?"

_Scary._ Neville shrugged. "I'll live." But then again, "At least I think I will. How long do you think I have?"

Harry ran a hand through his hair. "Well I can't say for certain. You're younger than Ambrose, that gives you a slight physical one up. And to be honest I think the stress of keeping the secret was part of what did Ambrose in so quickly. You'd be surprised what stress can do to your magical core."

"So you have no idea how long I have?"

"Not a clue. You could die tomorrow, or you could die twenty years from now depending on how my research goes."

"Research?" Harry was smiling now. In a way that neither Draco nor Neville had managed.

"I'm going to look more into this curse. If the prophecy says I must be your 'protector' then I'm gonna do some damn protecting."

Neville thought.

"So really my live expectancy, in a screwed up way, is no different than yours?"

"Pretty much."

Well that was cool. Neville closed his eyes and waited for Draco to return with his soup.

He had time.

XXX

Draco ducked as he walked in the door in order to avoid getting his head tangled in the vine that stretched across the top. It wound down and around on the inside, over most of the ceiling and the left wall. _Neville really needs to trim that._

"Neville!" Draco called into the shop when it was apparent the front was empty. "Are you here?" Maybe he'd left and forgotten to lock up again? It was a terrible habit. But then, who was going to rob a green house?

"Back here!"

Ah. Of course. Draco walked around the counter and through to the back. Neville was there kneeling on the ground covered in dirt up to his elbows. Beside him on the ground were a trowel and a watering can. He had small scissors in his hand and was leaning forward to reach into the heart of a large rose bush, clipping off the dead twigs and leaves inside.

"If you're going to spend all of your time back here you should hire someone to stay behind the counter. You know, to mind the shop that pays for all of this?" Draco gestured with his hands around them at the sea of green and yellow. Neville smiled peacefully at him.

"That's why I have a bell on the counter." A snipping sound and he sat back with a happy sigh and a fistful of browning leaves. His hand was scratched.

"You should also wear gloves."

"I know. But I figure next to this," Neville pointed at to the left side of his face "a few little thorn scars aren't going to make much of a difference."

"Maybe not. Here." Draco held out his hand to help Neville up. Neville looked doubtfully at his filthy hands then back to Draco's clean one. Draco rolled his eyes. "A little dirt isn't going to kill me Nev."

Neville grinned and took the hand.

"So what's up?" he asked.

"Lunch." Draco told him. "You missed it, I knew you would. And so I am here to take you out for your 'not quite lunch but too early to be dinner', meal."

"Well thank you. Let me go clean up and change."

Draco followed Neville into another room where there was a shower and a small chest of clothes. At first he had thought a shower was an odd addition to a green house since Neville could have always cleaned up at home. Then Neville had explained about the acid nature of certain oozes that certain plants dipped, spat, or secreted. Draco now agreed that a shower within the immediate vicinity of the plants was probably a good idea.

Neville was turning on the spigot and pulling his robes over his head. He glanced sideways in Draco's direction.

"I know I'm irresistibly sexy," he said "but you don't have to stand there. A few of your books are still here, you can read while you wait."

Draco leaned against the side of the doorway. "I'm fine."

Neville turned a shade darker than his favorite rosebush and slipped into the shower, muttering things about Malfoys and manners. Draco did watch, not noticing the things he usually took care to notice. The definition in Neville's arms. The strength in his hands. He was busy thinking about his friend and the other things they could be.

_"Do you think there will ever be anything between us?"_ Neville had once asked him. That was a few years ago now, just before Ambrose had died. Then, Draco hadn't known. Now Draco would find himself wondering that he had ever doubted the thing. Eventually he would get around to telling Neville.

They had the time.

Neville stepped out of the shower, dry already, and dressed quickly. He fumbled once or twice on a button.

"I'm ready." he announced. "If you're done making me feel horribly awkward."

Draco laughed at him and they walked out together though the green house. Neville stopped by the rose bush. It had a wild quality about it and Draco had always thought it looked too savage for a green house. Neville loved it for just that reason.

"Do you know what Ambrose told me once?" Neville asked.

Draco felt a far away ache. "No."

"He told me that, statistically, there was a zero percent chance of life ever coming to exist in any one universe."

"Is there now?"

"Isn't it astounding? Somehow the impossible happened. And not just here, not just once, but an infinite amount of times in all those other worlds. Even with everything wrong with the world, just that there is life to go wrong...doesn't it make you feel..." Neville fished around in the air with his hands like the word he was looking for was there.

Draco reached out and touched Neville's shoulder gently because he had to. Because he couldn't not.

"Yes it does." he said.


End file.
